


A Not-Gift

by alixabethmay



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Animals, Cats, Gen, Novel, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Third Person, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 13:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8016610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alixabethmay/pseuds/alixabethmay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Venus scrubbed her hand over her face. What the everloving-<i>fuck</i> was with Ruby's ideas for birthday presents?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Not-Gift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rachel (a reader) and Emilee (a writer)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Rachel+%28a+reader%29+and+Emilee+%28a+writer%29).



> Emilee (see: @t-adash-i on Tumblr) got me back into writing and Rachel is an A+ ~~captive~~ audience. Thanks, guys.

Nothing was  _really_ going wrong until Venus got her birthday present.

The rest of the day up until then had actually been fine, wonderful even, but her stepsister's gift ruined everything. It wasn't even Venus's birthday, it was her cousin Harry's, and Venus wondered if her stepsister had meant for Venus to give it to Harry and pretend that she was the one who bought it. That would probably be the  _best_ thing to do with it, because lord knew that Venus didn't actually get Harry anything. He was two! What do two-year-olds even  _need?_ Do they still eat baby food? Are they still technically babies? Can he read yet? Does he even speak?! Suffice it to say that Venus had not gotten him a present, and she was currently grasping at straws to find the most likely-looking object in her room.

"Um, pen nib, no; collectible matchbook, no; Rubik's Cube, no..." Venus glanced over the stuff on her desk, trying to conjure up some glimmering of memory about when she was two. What age did she start Pre-K again?

"Oh, this is hopeless," she huffed and fell back into her chair. She had nothing that Harry would like. Stealing an uncomfortable glance at what her stepsister had given her, she read over the tag: "To Venus. From Ruby." And then, underneath, in smaller letters that she must not have noticed before- "Feed well before opening."

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, and Venus was really wishing that she'd followed the instructions. This thing was insatiable now that she'd got it out of the box, and she quickly realised how big her mistake was when it... sort of  _absorbed_ her peace lily. After a brief moment of stunned silence, a couple seconds of shouting and thwacking with a book (she'd liked Gladys), and frantically shoving things off of her desk before that thing reached them, Venus grabbed the box and smacked it straight back down over the winged cat's head.

That was where she stood now, staring down at her ruined desk and mourning her flowers. As she bent down to pick up the shattered pieces of the flower pot, she grumbled to herself over Ruby's _interesting_ taste in gifts. This wasn't even the first time she'd done this either! Two summers ago, she'd found a half-dead, semi-decayed unicorn foal and kept it in the shed for three months before their mother smelled the flesh rotting off its ribs and insisted that they release it back into the woods surrounding the cemetery. Before that, it was Iovita, the little terrier-sized hydra that consistently used all three heads to nip at Venus's ankles whenever they were within reach. Ruby still had Iovita, who'd become even crankier in the three years since Ruby had found her, and she refused to let the old beast go. And now Ruby had found. Whatever this was. A weird cat-thing.

What was weird was that this thing didn't even seem to fit Ruby's usual monstrous criteria. The cat didn't have eighty-eight thousand heads or twelve eyes (Venus shuddered at the memory of Betsy the spider) or even some weird genetic disease that made it look what Ruby called "cool". It just had wings. They were bog-standard bird-style feathery wings that were the same orange as the tabby cat's fur, and barely looked large enough to support its body in flight. Venus wondered if maybe that's why Ruby had picked it up, out of pity. Either way, it was proving just as irritating and doubly as destructive as every other animal she'd brought in.

"Venus! We need to sing to Harry now!"

Venus startled at her mother's voice echoing up the stairs, nearly knocking over the box again. The cat's paw poked out of one of the lopsided holes that appeared to have been crudely cut into the cardboard. "What am I supposed to do with you?" Venus moaned, poking the cat's paw lightly with the eraser end of a pencil it had chewed to splinters.

* * *

Dinner was an awkward affair, not because (as Venus had feared) she hadn't bought a gift, but because Harry started bawling at the top of his lungs the minute he saw the two twin flames dancing on the candles. When Venus's exhausted-looking aunt came back inside the house, she confirmed everyone's worst fear- Harry was inconsolable. She would have to take him home early and end the celebration. Everyone seemed crestfallen, which made Venus feel worse about her elation. Harry wasn't staying! She could go back upstairs and make sure that cat wasn't destroying what remained of her desk! This  _was_ a good thing, right? That thought was punctuated by a crash from upstairs. Venus felt her eye twitch. "Uh, Harry, I'm sorry you didn't have fun, but it was great seeing you, alright, little man? Bye! Goodbye, Aunt Rosa!" No sooner had her aunt thanked her for her present (wait, what?) than she bolted upstairs and flung open her door, too preoccupied with salvaging what little most likely remained of her room to dwell on what Aunt Rosa had said about her present.

"Oh thank the lord," she sighed, collapsing onto the floor by her desk. The cat was no longer in the box, but was instead on the floor beside where she now sat, snoozing inside a paper bag. Its tail twitched occasionally, like it was dreaming of stalking prey out in the wilderness. Once, it rolled over and yawned in its sleep, making the bag crinkle under its shifting weight. Venus stared at the cat's tiny pointed teeth as it yawned. "You and me both, cat. You and me both."

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So I don't know how long this is going to be, or even if I'm going to continue it at all. Drop me a comment if you'd like.


End file.
